Keep the pension raiders at bay

Share via

If your local Polish tradesman looks down-in-the-mouth, it is with good
reason: they may just have seen a chunk of their retirement savings
appropriated by the State. Warsaw said last week it was helping itself to
all government bonds held in 14 private pension funds, $37 billion-worth,
transferring them to a state-run vehicle. This comes to more than half of
the assets owned by the funds, which are being allowed to keep their equity
holdings.

The wheeze, aimed at holding Polish national debt below 50 per cent of GDP — a
threshold above which it may not borrow — is only the

It is understandable that the construction of an air-polluting,
noise-blighting £22 billion third runway to turn Heathrow into the world’s
pre-eminent superhub caught the eye, but the Davies report into airport
expansion also made another radical suggestion: that — third runway or not —
Heathrow should start acting like the UK hub that it pretends to be